A View from the Bench
by Botticelli50
Summary: A brief drabble extending the 8.4 bench scene. Angsty but with hope for the future. Apologies to Arthur Miller fans for the title - so not as clever as it thinks it is!


A View from the Bench

[I loved 8.4. but as with all H/R obsessives, I wished it was longer – so here is a brief fantasy of a more extended version. I'm of course hoping that by keeping it angsty, I'm tempting the fates to find a more romantic outcome for them before the end of series 8!]

Harry's pace slowed as he approached the bench and the slight immobile figure waiting for him. This time it was he who had initiated this off-the-Grid meeting and already he was regretting it. Despite the trauma of their hostage experience the opportunity to once more have her back in his life had made him euphoric; but the joy of seeing Ruth once more in her rightful place had soon been replaced by frustration and a rising sense of panic that no matter what he did he couldn't bridge the chasm of pain and alienation that separated them. Harry was used to playing the long game and God knows they had been happy enough to dance around their feelings for years before Ruth disappeared, yet he knew in his heart of hearts that it wasn't going to work this time. Too much, even unspoken, had been revealed in those last fraught days of Cotterdam: he had glassed Oliver Mace and being prepared to face a lengthy prison sentence to save her; she had responded by sacrificing her way of life, her career, her family, to safeguard him. Was it possible they could go back from that, from the heart wrenching parting of the docks, and just pretend that everything was fine because it was unresolved?

Harry had expected anger and pain and grief – Ruth was too moral and sensitive a person not to carry guilt for the fate of her new partner and regret at the destruction of her 'elegant' new life – but this quiet despair and aloofness worried him. Perhaps he was just being a romantic old fool – why should she want to stir up cold embers; just because he hadn't been able to 'move on' (Harry momentarily indulged in an imaginary shudder at the coarse Americanism) didn't mean she was similarly stuck in the vicious circle of regret and hope that seemed to have preoccupied his thoughts to an obsessive degree ever since she had been dragged in by his captors frightened and distressed, a welcome ghost from the past.

Even at a slowed pace, Harry reached the bench before he had gathered his thoughts sufficiently to be able to decide how he wanted this meeting to proceed. He sat down heavily at the other end of the seat, physically acknowledging the chasm between them. Ruth stared out across the river to the calm neoclassical outlines of the buildings beyond. Harry watched her out of the corner of his eye, his body half inclined towards hers, a modest gesture of encouragement that was not reciprocated. Silence hung like a fog between them. Harry sighed heavily, opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, pursed his lips and then narrowing his eyes purposefully decided to be the first to capitulate.

_**Harry: " **_It makes a change not having to stare across at the backsides of politicians."

_**Ruth:**_ (Who once would have taking advantage of the opportunity to point out Harry's limitations as a humorist, refuses to be drawn into that intimacy)

"What do you want Harry?"

Her tone is worse than hostile, it is indifferent. Harry feels his heart constrict with despair.

_**Harry:**_ (Weighing each word with care and concern)

"I just wanted to check how you are doing"

_**Ruth:**_ (in a frigid, dead tone)

"I'm fine Harry, just hunky dory. Thanks for asking. Can I go now?"

_**Harry**_ (desperate that yet another opportunity to mend bridges is slipping away from him)

"Ruth, please. I just want to talk."

_**Ruth**_ (with a tremulous and loaded edge to her voice)

"About what?"

_**Harry**_ (with an uncharacteristic failure of nerve)

"About Jo. I know she meant a lot to you (pause) to all of us."

_**Ruth**_ (spiteful, malicious retorts fill her head, but she pushes them away. She realises that stabbing at Harry is only a childish way of misplacing her own guilt)

"The Service meant everything to her. (pause) She paid the ultimate price for that loyalty (in a bitter tone) sooner or later we all do."

_**Harry**_ (cutting across the inferences and presuming on their long-established ability to understand each others thoughts)

"I can't wave a magic wand and make it right Ruth, I wish I could."

_**Ruth**_ "Make what right Harry? – the deaths, the pain, the senseless loss? That's a tall order, even for the great Sir Harry Pearce."

_**Harry **_(Shifting awkwardly in his seat, but still determined not to allow Ruth to drive him away)

"I understand how difficult the last weeks have been for you Ruth, truly I do."

_**Ruth**_ (aggressively but with pain in her eyes as she finally meets Harry's gaze directly)

"I appreciate the tea and sympathy Harry, another time, (brief pause with an ironic half smile) another life, perhaps."

_**Harry**_ (reaching the end of his patience)

" We don't have another life Ruth. Only this one. This messed up untidy version that we're stuck with. Don't you think we've wasted enough of it already?"

_**Ruth**_ (casting her eyes down onto the slats of the bench as she mentally retreats into her shell)

"I'm dead Harry. I'm meant to have risen phoenix –like from the ashes of my old life that was my new life and is now my 'might-never-have happened' life; but I'm still dead. Not brain dead of course, still able to contribute the little grey cells to combating the latest threat to the nation, but dead inside. You think I don't know what you want? Why you asked me to meet you? You want to recover what might have been, never was and is now a figment of the past. Forget it Harry, Hope is an overrated virtue, believe you me.

_**Harry **_(very gently places his hand over hers and murmurs in a low and passionate voice)

"Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;

Thou gav'st me thine, not to give back again."

Ruth turns to look out across the river again without replying and Harry follows suit, although his hand remains covering hers and she does not attempt to pull away.


End file.
